Advanced Drug Utilization Research

Course Aim
This session will be based on the real-world conduct of drug utilisation studies, with specific examples to provide participants with skills and working knowledge in the conduct of advanced drug utilisation methods and development of interventions. Attendees should leave the sessions with a strong understanding of potential methods to be used in DUR. This interactive educational program includes presentations, question and answer sessions and a final discussion with the faculty panel. The session will involve participants in the:
1. Advanced drug utilisation methods (i.e., segmented time-series analysis and ARIMA modelling, machine learning, and data visualisation in drug utilisation research)
2. Application of principles derived from health services and implementation research to the design of a clinical intervention and methods for evaluation of interventions
3. Use of drug utilisation information from various databases to improve medicines use and assess the quality of prescribing

Requisites Statement
All levels of expertise but specifically this course is targeted at:
1. Members of the DUR / HSR SIG
2. Graduate students interested in advanced methodologies
3. Those interested in quality development and implementation research, knowledge transfer, evaluation of interventions, health and medicines policy areas, health funds and third-party payers
4. Clinical pharmacoepidemiologists, health service planners, clinical guidelines developers, health practitioners

Course Objectives
1. To gain an advanced understanding of planning, implementation and evaluation requirements for an effective quality use of medicines intervention
2. To provide an understanding of advanced drug utilisation methods to evaluate complex interventions and appropriateness of prescribing
3. To develop an understanding of the significance and applications of DUR to translate research findings at the clinical and policy levels of the health system to improve health outcomes

Syllabus Outline
All presentations will include real world examples of conducting DUR in practice, relevant to each of the topics.
1. Mina Tadrous, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto. Segmented time-series analysis and ARIMA modelling in drug utilisation research and methods for assessing medication persistence
2. Katja Taxis, Professor of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Care, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Design and Evaluation of Interventions to Improve Quality of Medicine Use
3. Petra Denig, Professor Drug Utilisation Quality, University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands. Use of databases to improve medicines use and assess the quality of prescribing. Using a framework to define different aspects of rational drug use, individual measures and indicator sets to assess the quality of prescribing. Data requirements will be discussed, illustrating the concept of drug-oriented, disease-oriented and patient-oriented prescribing quality indicators. Attendees will receive assignments to define the best fitting indicators for several examples of potentially inappropriate medicine use with different types of databases.